Forex Trading - The Basics

Is forex trading for you? Well, the fairest way to answer that is by explaining the basics of foreign exchange trading to you.

First things first, the Forex is a market on which the currency of one country is "compared" to the currency of another country in order to determine a value. This value is what you will be trading.

The forex, or foreign exchange market is open and availalbe for trading 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. This gives the currency trading markets a distinct advantage over all other financial markets available to investors.

Also, the size of the forex absolutely dwarfs all other financial markets combined. This massive size creates unique advantages over all other trading tools.

According to most forex brokers, all stop orders (with few exceptions) will be filled at their enetered price. In trading terms this means no slippage. I can't even begin to put a value on this feature.

Due to this quality you can have orders filled of up to $20 million of currency at the market price. Again, an almost unnatural feature when compared to other trading markets.

A more advanced feature is the ability to sell short with no regulations. Ok, technically you are never selling currency short, but I won't get into that in this article.

What this means is that, if at any time you believe the value of a currency is going to decrease, you will be able to take act on your hunch without delay.

Another one of a kind characteristic of the forex market is it's amazingly accurate technical analysis. Like all other financial trading tools, the forex market has all of its' "stocks charted". This is no big surprise, or advantage.

However, unlike other tools, all points on a chart in the forex are based on the bid price. So, Eddie, why does this matter to me? Because this means that the spread is not factored into the chart price. This leads to a much more accurate and readable chart.

In fact, the spread is constant on all forex currency pairs. Some have spreads as low as 2 pips and others as high as 10 or even more. However, they remain constatn with almost all forex brokers and forex banks. This is yet another reason to look at the forex markets.

In my incredibly humble opinion, there is no market that provides the opportunity and benefits like the foreign exchange. The forex has been traded by banks and financial institutions for decades. Now, you, as an individual can climb into the ring and take your shots.

Ok, hopefully this gives you some sort of direction of whether or not forex trading is right for you.